Should you tell someone that what they are writing isnt poetry?

"Free verse is a literary device that can be defined as poetry that is free from limitations of regular meter or rhythm, and does not rhyme with fixed forms. Such poems are without rhythm and rhyme schemes, do not follow regular rhyme scheme rules, yet still provide artistic expression. In this way, the poet can give his own shape to a poem however he or she desires. However, it still allows poets to use alliteration, rhyme, cadences, and rhythms to get the effects that they consider are suitable for the piece."

Poetry is subjective but even free verse should have artistic expression. So the question is - As a budding writer is it better to be helped to learn and progress your skills producing the best work that you can or is it better to be oblivious and believe that you are writing poetry when your work is nothing more than a droning monologue or one sided conversation with no artistic merit.?

More and more I come across poems" that are churned out with little thought (quantity rather than quality) and which bears no resemblance to poetry. So how do you let someone know when they think they are writing poetry when they are not? Or do you just let them get on with it?

Part of the process of learning free expression in poetry in my opinion is the uninhibited approach to expressing yourself, your feelings and emotions in any capacity form or style whatsoever. There's no guideline. No rules or regulation whatsoever. I believe the poet will eventually grow, and if they choose to refine their skills they can do so willingly and seek that out, through community contests and feedback from our moderators.

Oh and artistic merit, according to who? I like that this site tends to be subjective in our collective experience as "poets," because the opposite of subjectivity is the absence of what makes us human in expressing ourselves without remorse or second thought. If I have to meet the criteria and check off my poems according to the merit of style, form, rhythm and how much emotionality is put forth in a specific topic or idea, I think I would be hindered in expressing how I feel. That's what it comes down to right? If how I feel and what emotions I can express through words somehow do not meet someone's merited list of how I should write, why write at all? Great discussion Milly I like it. Makes you more humble for the seasoned writers and published poets for their poems and whatever merited list they had to exceed and were criticize for if they did not.

I think that we can say that we don't like the poetry and what exactly. But I think we have no right to decide whether it is the poetry or not. Because it's a way the person expresses his/her emotions, feelings, thoughts.
That's how I consider this issue.